A brief selection of snapshots from GCPH’s seminar series

1. A brief selection of snapshots from GCPH’s seminar series

3. Learning to live with an angry planet • All human societies have had a perspective on their relation with nature and the earth. • This perspective profoundly influences how the society lives. • 4.5 billion year history of the earth. • It can be likened to an angry beast. The last thing humans should do is poke it with a stick. Geoffrey Boulton, January 2008

4. Maureen O’Hara, May 2005

6. Transformation of Scotland, 1980-2005 • Changes in the economy, society and culture similar in scale to the 19th century industrial revolution – but have been largely unnoticed or ignored. • Scale of change has excluded many and seems to have resulted in a more divided Scotland. Tom Devine, December 2005

7. The persistence of health inequalities • Differential access to resources, networks, prestige etc helps protect those possessing them from the burden of disease and death. • Helps explain the continuing nature of inequalities in health despite the changing nature of primary causes of illness. • Get resources to the resource poor and work on improving context for whole population. Bruce Link, December 2007

8. Why selfish capitalism causes increased mental illness • Selfish capitalism: the system characteristics that lead to Affluenza (over-emphasis on the material aspects of life) • Too strong a focus on materialism interferes with the meeting of fundamental psychological needs Oliver James, June 2008

9. Scots Miserabilism • Trainspotting: addiction as the only outcome for many men • Whisky Galore, Brigadoon, Braveheart etc: Sugar coated alternatives;community works well • But Miserabilism has become a commodity – sells well • Need for ‘hope’ to be reflected in life and film Eleanor Yule, February 2010

10. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class • What is the precariat? • Why should we care about it? • Why has it been growing? • Where is the precariat? • Where is the precariat leading our society? Guy Standing, November 2011

11. Collaboration: The city as a complex adaptive system • Informal networked forms of knowledge and organisation work better than more formal bureaucratic forms in navigating complex adaptive systems – distributed decision-making • 3 forms of knowledge: experiential, narrative, abstract symbolic • Boundary objects enable order to be created in uncertain circumstances Max Boisot, November 2010

13. Order and chaos are both significant aspects of the world. We continue to pursue the belief that ‘if only we had all the info, we could figure everything out’; yet we also know there are lots of non-forecastable phenomena. Sholom Glauberman, February 2005

14. Multiple stories and methods • A paternalistic approach is neither acceptable nor likely to be effective: • civic conversation • wisdom circles (Manfred Helrigl) • use of creative imagination (Irene McAra McWilliam) • positive deviance (Sternin) AC Grayling, November 2004

15. Long standing issues: new responses • Three horizon thinking – supporting the third horizon in the present • Addressing established priorities Jeffrey Wigand, March 2007